"Last Saturday was a great morale booster going into Friday night - the top two teams to open the round up and it'll be a big crowd at the Telstra Dome and the boys have been buzzing this week at training," said Mariners Football Manager Lawrie McKinna.

"We love going down to Melbourne, we've had some great results down there, some great games down there - the 3-3 draw comes to mind, our 0-0 draw down there last year was still a great game.

"They're always big occasions and generally we do well and the 2-2 draw up here earlier in the season still gives me nightmares, because that's a game that we should have won, even when they had eleven men on the park, we were doing pretty well against them."

Meanwhile, the Victory will swap Cost Ricans as Carlos Hernandez returns from injury to replace compatriot Jose Luiz Lopez who is on international duty.

Despite the fact he has a stomach virus, Scottish midfielder Grant Brebner is expected to play according to Victory coach Ernie Merrick.

"At this stage he's just struggling to keep food down, but he's been in fantastic form," Merrick told Fox Sports.

About the author

Andrew Slevison is an avid sports fan, particularly of the world game. The Melbourne, Australia native, who has spent time living in London and travelling South America, takes a keen interest in the English Premier League and Major League Soccer and rates his best live footballing moment as the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil.